Natural gas might burn much cleaner than coal, but getting it has its problems: leaky pipes. And those leaks spray gasses that are worse for the climate than carbon. Natural gas is a hot energy commodity right now, with new drilling techniques, low prices, a big domestic supply in the U.S., and the support of people like T
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Feed SubscriptionIf New York City Becomes The "Smartest" City In The World, How Will It Prepare For Future Hurricanes?
Irene did less damage than expected, but when the next big storm comes (and it will), cities that have made innovative decisions in how they run operations will be better off. Thankfully, Hurricane Irene turned out to be much weaker than predicted.
Read More »Cloud Formation May Be Linked to Cosmic Rays
From Nature magazine It sounds like a conspiracy theory: 'cosmic rays' from deep space might be creating clouds in Earth's atmosphere and changing the climate. Yet an experiment at CERN, Europe's high-energy physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, is finding tentative evidence for just that
Read More »El Nino Found to Drive Tropical Civil Wars
In 1957, civil war broke out in then Burma (now Myanmar) and Oman.
Read More »Heating Homes With Human Waste Is Saving Lives And Tigers In Nepal
One man's waste can quite literally be another's gold. Biogas is a clean, odorless, and life-changing source of energy that saves women from spending all day looking for firewood, and thus saves the forests that are home to tigers. Dirt gets a bad rap.
Read More »The Toilet Of The Future Will Turn Poop Into Power
You can't dump on this idea: A new $40 million initiative by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will help develop futuristic toilets that transform human waste into usable electricity and fuel. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced on Tuesday that they are giving away more than $42 million to develop new, innovative toilets for use in the world's poorest regions
Read More »Poorer Nations Lead Global Movement Toward Low Carbon Energy
Poor countries have spent just as much as rich ones -- and in the case of China, more -- to develop low-carbon energy, according to a study coming out this week. Its conclusions could turn the conventional wisdom about the differences among nations over mitigation efforts on its head. The report by former World Bank economist David Wheeler, who now leads the climate change division at the think tank Center for Global Development, finds that China spent 94 cents of every $10,000 of average income on clean energy between 1990 and 2008.
Read More »Live Animals In A Climate Change Simulator Reveal Which Species Adapt
A Brazilian project called ADAPTA will put hundreds of species from the Amazon in conditions that mimic what the world will be like after years of climate change. The mission: to see which animals adapt and which will need our help to survive.
Read More »Climate Scientists to Use Robotic Devices to Elude Pirates
SINGAPORE, July 14 (Reuters) - Climate scientists haveturned to the United States and Australian navies to deploy [More]
Read More »Saving Nature by Ending It: Geoengineering and the Moral Case for Conservation [Video]
Climate change is a foregone conclusion. The amount of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere from two centuries-worth of fossil fuel burning (and, apparently, with decades more worth to come, given the glacial pace of efforts to slow said emissions) is enough to substantially warm global average temperatures
Read More »Climate Debate Turns Nasty as Australia Tries to Price CO2
By David Fogarty, Climate Change Correspondent, Asia SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Australian climate scientists say they have received death threats, emails with sexual slurs and other insults in a surge of abuse that appears to be a coordinated campaign of intimidation. [More]
Read More »Google Visualizes Climate Change
Cal-Adapt, the company's new handy climate-change-impact visualizer, makes it easy to understand the specific effects of climate change on where you live (though you may have to move--your neighborhood might be underwater soon). For the average person, data about climate change can be hard to come by.
Read More »The Met Teams With IBM To Preserve Art, Avoid Going Medieval On Assets
With a new indoor weather monitoring system, IBM makes it easier to ensure rare art is properly preserved. But the implications go far beyond museums. Humans have, in general, done a decent job of preserving relics of the past in museums
Read More »Best Of Both Worlds: Geothermal Energy That Sucks CO2 From The Atmosphere
Clean power from the Earth used to use a lot of water. But a new discovery means that water can be replaced with CO2, which gets left in the ground and doesn't alter the climate
Read More »Canada Confirms It Will Reject New Kyoto Protocol
BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Canada confirmed on Wednesday that it would not support an extended Kyoto Protocol after 2012, joining Japan and Russia in rejecting a new round of the climate emissions pact. The current Kyoto Protocol binds only the emissions of industrialized countries from 2008-2012. Poor and emerging economies want to extend the pact, creating a deadlock at U.N.
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